In This Episode

Step aside, Millennials. There’s a new, younger group out there: Generation Z, which includes anyone born after 1996. To learn more about this generation, we sat down with Kim Parker, director of social trends research at the Pew Research Center.

After the Fact

“After the Fact” is a podcast from The Pew Charitable Trusts that brings you data and analysis on the issues that matter to you—from our environment and the sciences, to larger economic trends and public health.

They have survived dark Antarctic winters, frigid temperatures, and fierce predators such as leopard seals for
millions of years. However, some emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) colonies, including the one featured in
the documentary “March of the Penguins,” face a grave future.

About emperor penguins

The emperor penguin is one of the most ice-dependent of all penguin species, requiring sea ice for foraging,
breeding, and raising its young. It is the only penguin to breed on sea ice and remain in Antarctica through the
winter.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists emperor penguins as Near Threatened with
extinction. As of 2012, there were about 238,000 breeding pairs in existence, but scientists project that
populations will plummet by as much as 33 percent by the turn of the century.

Did You Know?

Emperor penguins are the largest penguins, reaching up to 1.2 meters (4
feet) tall and weighing up to 38 kilograms (84 pounds), more than twice
the size of the next-largest penguin species.

They have just one chick per year per pair.

They have no fixed nests, so they rely on vocal calls to locate their mates
and chicks among thousands of birds.

They travel up to 120.7 kilometers (75 miles) from their colonies to reach
open water to search for food. Habitat

Fossil records show
that emperor penguins
probably began their
evolution during the
time of the dinosaurs.

Habitat and threats

Emperor penguins require an abundant and accessible
food supply consisting primarily of krill, the tiny shrimplike
crustaceans that serve as building blocks of the food web
in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica.

Much of the industrial fishing for Antarctic krill occurs in
coastal waters and overlaps with penguin foraging areas.
If this activity continues close to coastal areas, and if seaice
coverage continues to decrease as a result of climate
change, penguins will have to travel farther from their
colonies to find food. The longer the parents are away,
the greater the likelihood that their chicks will succumb to
predation and starvation.

What we can do

The Pew Charitable Trusts advocates for ecosystem-based
management of fisheries and a network of marine reserves
in the Southern Ocean to protect emperor penguins and
their habitat. Pew recommends:

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine
Living Resources (CCAMLR) is an international body of
24 countries and the European Union with the authority
to create large-scale, fully protected marine reserves in
the waters surrounding Antarctica. Action by CCAMLR is
needed to help alleviate threats to these penguins and to
protect them for the future.